Beyond Bitmap Comparisons
It was simpler in the past to compare bitmaps for GUI testing when all applications ran in full-screen mode and only two video adapters existed in the hardware industry. The situation is different today. With such a wide variety of devices at everyone’s disposal with innumerable combinations of hardware backing it up, trying to ensure you have all the baseline bitmaps accounted for is a near-impossible task. Think about all the multiple screen sizes and resolutions available from mobile devices, to laptops, tablets, TVs, and smart refrigerators. Not only that, but cross-platform and hybrid applications allow for software to be sized according to the consumer’s will and make browser compatibility a possibility too. We can, however, break elements down into widgets if we choose to abstract the intention of GUIs. These widgets (or controls) are made up of panels, menus, text elements, input fields, scroll bars, checkboxes, etc. After this breakdown, widgets can then be specified in the order of view that they should be in for each application. But QA technicians find this a complicated task too and for good reason. This is because widgets have a Z-order which means that they can be stacked one on top of the other. But while complicated, it is a functional approach in relation to saving and comparing bitmaps. Layout methods for GUIs can also highlight concrete locations and sizes for each element, or make use of a flow design methodology. This helps testers a lot by helping them know which was used during the design phase. This also helps you verify control coordinates and boundaries when you begin testing and for flow designs, you can also access control IDs. There are a few things that testers need to keep in check when testing GUIs with controls. The first is to ensure that every widget appears for every possible user interaction. And there could be tho
